Calendars

I have never been able to fully understand poetry. I wish that I could, and truly I have tried in my many years of formal schooling to be able to read a poem or write down those words in a particular flow or rhythm as to incite joy or sadness or any other sort of reverence. But I have always struggled.

I was watching an episode of Parts Unknown in Montana, where the late traveler Anthony Bourdain discussed life with the late poet Jim Harrison. They talked about many things, and Harrison’s rough voice reading his work captured the sound and style of a rugged state. I have never really understood poetry.

I went to the internet and bought In Search of Small Gods, a collection of poems by Jim Harrison. I wanted to read and to think and to hopefully understand.

So I read and I thought and I did not understand. At least not at first. I was seeking a universal theme or motif or some other word my middle school English teacher used. But understanding is fluid and fleeting and that is beautiful.

I read poetry differently now. Less to understand and more to connect. To connect to myself and my experiences and maybe even a dead poet. 

So here is a poem that I have connected with. I hope you can as well.

Calendars

Back in the blue chair in front of the green studio

another year has passed, or so they say, but calendars lie.

They’re a kind of cosmic business machine like

their cousin clocks but break down at inopportune times.

Fifty years ago I learned to jump off the calendar

but I kept getting drawn back on for reasons

of greed and my imperishable stupidity.

Of late I’ve escaped those fatal squares

with their razor-sharp numbers for longer and longer.

I had to become the moving water I already am,

falling back into the human shape in order

not to frighten my children, grandchildren, dogs and friends.

Our old cat doesn’t care. He laps the water where my face used to be.

-Jim Harrison